For those who have noticed the disparity in names after they've read this chapter, Satoshi is Red. Satoshi is not Satoshi from the anime. The reason behind the name change will not be in this chapter, but it will be covered later. Please don't flame me on this.

The main resources for this story will be the game, manga, and anime, in that order of importance. I've also taken inspiration from quite a few other fics here on this site, which you can see a list of on my profile.

Enjoy the first full chapter!

Chapter 1

There was a loud flurry of sheets and blankets, and from the mound erupted Satoshi, still gasping for air. He blinked blearily, rubbing his eyes to rid himself of the last vestiges of sleep. He had had a dream, a nightmare, perhaps, but he no longer remembered. He remained sitting in the soft shadows, trying to grasp at the fading wisps of green, but it was to no avail. Instead, he looked up, out the window. The sun wasn't up yet.

He left his covers unfolded and pulled on a simple T-shirt. Summer at Pallet Town was a nice mix of hot and cold such that it was always a comfortable temperature. Creeping down the hall and then the stairs, he noted that his mother was still asleep, and the resident guard dog, Rei, was asleep at his bed. The orange and black fur rippled through its soft breaths, accompanied by a bit of an odd gasp-whimper mixture. A small smile slipped past Satoshi's lips; the Growlithe had a bad habit of dropping off during his duty, as well as a predilection for snoring. The boy shuffled out the door; he made sure to close it quietly because, even asleep, a Growlithe's ears were sharp.

The town was still asleep; not a person was on the street. A sudden storm of flapping erupted in the distance. Satoshi looked up and caught sight of a flock of Pidgey taking wing to the cloudless sky. The barest edge of the sun – or Ninetales' Orb, as it was commonly called – was visible, a haze of pale yellow and blue heralding its rise. The town was still empty and would be until it had completely crawled up from the depths of the horizon.

He closed his eyes … inhaled, exhaled. The crisp air crept into his lungs, and he smiled at the sensation. He stayed that way for a few minutes, relishing the moment and trying to calm his excitement, for today was the day.

It was much too early, but that didn't matter. Satoshi started walking down the road, past the houses, past the fences, and down the hill, moving faster and faster with each step. By the time he had crossed the last cottage, he was running around and up the hill towards the world-renown, highly-acclaimed Professor Oak's lab.

Oak was a man no one knew much about, but no one could dispute his influence in the Pokémon world. Indeed, it wasn't that he was gruff or unsociable; quite the opposite. He'd invite the locals for tea and new prospective trainers were always welcome to a tour around the lab (after the more dangerous Pokémon had been herded away, of course). It was just that he'd spend so much time in his lab that he'd almost forget the outside world existed. Time existed only as a measure to know when to switch from studying Fearow to Noctowls. In addition, it was almost impossible to get the professor to talk about anything unrelated to Pokémon.

Well, that was hardly unsurprising, considering his reputation, which wasn't one given simply because Oak had a lot of money (which was true) or because he had many connections (which was also true). He had well and truly earned his title as the Number One Expert on Pokémon in the Kanto region. It was rumored that he was the only one to look into a Feraligatr's jaws to count the number of teeth it had and pull his head out intact.

More pertinent to this story, though, Oak was one of the only places in Kanto where new trainers could receive their Trainer License and new Pokémon at the age of ten. It was something many kids looked forward to starting – never mind that they usually ran crying back to their mothers an hour later, at worst, and a week later, at best. The Pokémon journey was a building of character. It was a test of strength, of the body, mind, and soul. You couldn't expect a ten-year-old to go out and snatch up all eight badges in Kanto and saunter off to the League, something even experienced adults had trouble with.

That didn't stop them from dreaming, though.

And so ten-year-old Satoshi found himself standing at the door of Oak's lab, panting and much too early for the reception. He looked around at the sun again. It was still only just barely over the tree line. He glared at it – whether it was because of the rays directly hitting his pupils or because he was cursing it for being so slow a timepiece was anyone's guess. He turned back to the door. He rang the doorbell, and he heard its chime ring through the house, but there were no accompanying footsteps, no shout of "I'm coming!" This wasn't unusual. Satoshi didn't even blink as he rerouted his course of action to Plan B.

He knelt by the front step and turned towards the patch of bushes to the right. There was a small bit of space behind the boxwood, just enough for an adult hand. Satoshi reached in, fumbled around a bit, and came out clutching his prize – the lab key.

When he was still a kid (meaning when he was still ineligible for the License, in his and many other children's minds), he had spent hours upon hours at Oak's lab. He had never been a very personable boy, and while his neighbors said he was a "nice boy," they kept their distance. It didn't bother Satoshi much. It was far better to be treated coolly than to be treated like a glass figurine that would break at a touch, or even worse, like he was a handicapped paraplegic forced to live his life out in solitude.

As we've already established, though, Oak was no ordinary man. He noticed Satoshi's "disability" about as much as he noticed what flowers his neighbors were growing in their front yard gardens. That one day, long ago, when Satoshi had stumbled upon his front door step dirty and bruised, Oak had brought him in, cleaned him up, given him a hot cup of tea before promptly settling down and talking about the dietary differences between Pidgey and Spearow. An elementary topic, to be sure, but it had brought a smile to Satoshi's face, and he'd come back the next day, and the next, and the one after that.

It didn't matter that the old professor was an odd eccentric who perhaps loved Pokémon more than he cared about the entire human race – family being the exception. They were oddities together, here.

Inside the lab, the stench of stale bread and bad coffee greeted him, and Satoshi couldn't help but cover his nose and mouth with his hands. For a genius, or perhaps because he was one, the man was horribly untidy. Once upon a time, he had tried to help clean the mess, but everything just fell out of place again two minutes later, like it was their destiny to remain amongst the clutter. Papers were spread over every visible corner of every desk in the room (and that in itself was quite a number). The assistants obviously weren't in because not only would they have answered the door, but they would have at least picked up the scales, thermometers, and tape measures littering the floor along with beakers and graduated cylinders. Again, it was nothing new, but it still appalled him every single day, like a horrible experience that kept erasing itself from his memory.

He picked his way past the overturned chairs and test tubes, staying close to the wall, making a slow but steady progress towards the back door. It took a good five minutes.

Finally, his hand, outstretched beside him, hit upon the L-shaped handle, and he twisted it with a burst of energy and flung himself out the door. The freshness of the breeze was like a welcome slap in the face, jarring, but anything was better than that small-scale apocalypse.

He turned his gaze over the fields. There were a few Pokémon in sight, the nearer ones scurrying away from the sudden commotion he'd caused. Some Nidoran poked their heads up and watched him with wary eyes as he walked past them.

If a visitor were to describe Oak's laboratory, the first word to their mind would probably be some synonym of "large," which is a gross understatement. Oak's research encompassed all Pokémon, and so he had to be able to house all the Pokémon he was studying. As such, he had spent hundreds of millions of Pokéyen simply on the construction of natural habitats alone – everything from savannahs to forests, rivers, mountain ranges, swamps, old collapsed ruins. He'd even constructed an aquarium for salt water Pokémon, greenhouse for the more tropical climate Pokémon, an aviary, and even an ice box. Anything imaginable, he had, and anything he didn't have yet, he would build. It was all so natural it couldn't be anything but artificial, but the Pokémon didn't seem to mind, and that was enough to keep Oak happy.

It was nice to know the government's grants were being put to good use.

Satoshi himself had been to a scant few of the environments; most were too dangerous for even experienced veterans. A Magmar could heat a peak to volcanic heat on its own, let alone a pair, for example. (Luckily, most of the Pokémon at Oak's were fairly cooperative, and so mass destruction was always just barely avoided.) No, he stayed within the fields and sometimes the forest. If he was lucky, then the professor would be in the vicinity.

Still, just those two areas were large enough on their own. It would be impossible for him to find him before the lab opened. He fingered the whistle he kept around his neck, at his mother's request. Briefly, he pondered the consequences on the poor Nidoran's ears of what he was about to do, but he lifted the instrument to his lips anyways…

…and blew.

The shrill blast echoed through the open range, compounded by the startled shrieks by the rabbit Pokémon before they ran for dear mercy on their ears. He blew until he was out of breath, and still he blew, until he was red in the face and was forced to take a breath. Gasping, heaving, and panting, he glanced around again.

At first, there was nothing, but then, after a few minutes, there came a yell. A flailing figure, a man, appeared in the distance. A grin burst onto Satoshi's face as he ran towards what could only be Oak.

"-it! Wait! Don't come any closer!"

The words took a while to register in the boy's brain.

"Get back here, you rodent! Are you trying to break an old man's back? Stay still!"

He stopped and squinted into the distance again. It looked like the professor wasn't running towards him; rather, he was running in circles with his arms outstretched before him. If he stared long enough, Satoshi could just barely make out the flashes of electricity bursting free of the tall grass, always a few feet before Oak.

Positively beside himself with giddiness by this point, Satoshi set off again, this time with whistle in mouth. Every exhale was punctuated by a fwheet fwheet, and as he'd hoped, the bursts of static paused, then turned tail and started heading his way.

Oak had noticed the change in direction too. "Satoshi? Satoshi! Stop, not yet! He hasn't discharged yet!" hollered the professor, waving his arms frantically.

Satoshi ignored his calls and kept running. The two, human and mouse, almost collided had they not screeched to a stop a few feet from each other. They stared, taking each other in. The boy leaned back a bit, seeing that Oak was right; there were still bolts crackling from those red cheeks. The Pokémon, on his part, looked up, and, immediately sensing what the problem was, let loose a powerful burst of electricity that forced Satoshi to throw his hand up to cover his eyes. But before long the hissing was gone and all that sat there was a relatively harmless mouse Pokémon.

With the danger gone, Satoshi knelt with arms held open, and into them leapt the Pikachu. The boy buried his face in the rodent's soft fur, relishing in the soft coo that was the Pokémon's version of a welcome back.

He didn't need a voice to communicate with his old friend, whom he had known since he was a Pichu. Years of friendship had helped them overcome that obstacle long ago, and it was with joy and hope that he would be starting his Pokémon journey that day, with someone who understood him perfectly standing by his side.